1. Use positive language

Focusing on the positive is motivating and transparent. It encourages everyone to focus on positive goals, and develop a culture of “can do”.

What it does

First and foremost, focus in on a super-specific goal and share that objective with your team.

“We don’t want to come last” is the wrong approach – it infers that last is probable, and focuses upon the negative: don’t.

“We want to be better at meeting targets” isn’t a specific goal because it lacks detail. It focuses on the fact that you’re currently failing, and it gives no cohesive benchmark to know when you’ve hit the target.

Recognise, visualise and communicate what “success” means for your team and set out practical means for everyone to achieve it.

“We want to improve productivity by 15%” is specific and achievable.

How it can be achieved

Lead by example.

Focus on the positive in your dealing with your team. Tell them what they’ve done well, not what they’ve done poorly.

Every team has someone who feels that they hold the team back. Focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t. There’s always a way of using the “can-do” skillset to get something done.

Using positive language is an NLP technique that focuses on realistic goals and their achievement.

2. Focus on quality

Why is it important?

Some people drift through their working life doing the bare minimum, while others slog their guts out and get little of the recognition they deserve.

How it works

Praise goes a long way in expressing recognition of an individual’s contribution to a team effort. Moreover, a lack of approval, when others are receiving public credit, can go a long way towards motivating the slow-coaches to up their game.

How it can be achieved

Publicly praise hard work – make sure that those who work hard are recognised in front of their peers. Remember, you don’t want to increase division – aim to incentivise those who do the bare minimum to meet the rest of the team halfway by rewarding everyone for hitting their achievable targets.

Expect of others what you’re prepared to demonstrate – sitting around eating sandwiches and reading the paper just spreads lethargy. If you want your team to work together, lead from the front and facilitate a positive work ethic.

3. Make everyone feel part of the gang

Why is it important?

Teamwork starts with a sense of belonging. Helping your people recognise their significance in the path to a shared goal helps everyone to pull together.

How it works

Unity can be achieved through a range of approaches, from choosing a team colour to incentivising a feedback culture.

Creating a positive identity for a team can be a good way of bringing everyone together. Help each team member to feel proud to be part of your team.

Choose a group colour so that each team member can show that they’re a part of a significant collective – use these Simon Jersey discount codes to select an identity that everyone will love.

How it can be achieved

Give everyone a little bit of ownership for the team identity. Hold a meeting and suggest the idea, giving each team member some creativity in how they decide to implement it.

This way, the idea comes from them – you’re encouraging everyone to express their individuality within a theme that brings everyone together.

4. Reinforce and recognise their strengths

Why is it important?

Everyone is good at some things and not so good at others, and a team is likely to have a combination of skills. Recognising what each individual is good at allows you to focus on the positives while reinforcing the confidence of each person.

How it works

Find out which parts of the role are the most challenging: there’s always going to be an expert in your midst. It doesn’t mean that that person gets lumbered with all the hard work while everyone else swans through, though.

Identifying potential is one thing – but reinforcing it is another.

How it can be achieved

Set your team some informal training targets.

Utilise the skills of your most confident team members to mentor and nurture the less confident in your team. Make sure that praise and positive language is at the heart of the exercise.

Getting the most confident colleagues to share skills is a great way to affirm team cohesion. Suggest that the less confident share their strengths as well. This way everyone acknowledges each other’s importance.

Getting the less confident to share new skills is a great way of affirming their new learning.

Workplace distractions are a killer for productivity. Of course, everyone needs a little downtime – workhorses get exhausted.

But modern life is fraught with distractions. Emails constantly pinging, social media obsessions, smartphone notifications, cat videos…

Keeping people on task is a sure way to success.

Just consider – every time someone stops to check their Facebook profile, they could have been focusing on a group project.

How it can be achieved

Share this information with your team.

They’re likely to be shocked at the amount of time they’re wasting by staring at their phone.

Recommend a phones-off policy until break-times. They may consider this a drastic step at first, but give the policy a timescale and set a realistic target to prove what can be achieved when distractions are minimised.

Ultimately, if you demonstrate how much you can achieve together when distractions are limited to breaks, you’ll hit your targets.

If you can show the positives of maintaining team focus and prove that realistic goal-setting helps to create cohesion, you’re on the way to success.

Illustrate how sharing and supporting the skills of the team can reinforce and boost confidence, and you’ll find yourself on a path to a team with a culture of positive work ethic and exponentially increasing confidence.